'lentils' on Serious Eats

As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall grumbles in River Cottage Veg, arugula has become too popular for its own good. His arugula-fennel-lentil salad is an attempt to celebrate the green on its own merit. Earthy lentils and the crunchy, anise notes of fennel do indeed balance the peppery lettuce, and bright lemon zest enlivens the mix. More

The Mejadra recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi'sJerusalem: A Cookbook is Tamimi's take on the traditional Arab comfort food combination of rice, lentils, and onions. Here, the rice and lentils are steamed together with a plethora of spices, pilaf style, before adding the pièce de résistance--a smattering of freshly fried onions. More

According to Troth Wells's The World of Street Food, harira is Morocco's national soup. The dish usually consists of either chickpeas or lentils, along with tomatoes, saffron, and other spices. Of course, as is the case with most national dishes, there are hundreds of variations, including some that contain meat, fresh dates, and nuts. More

If there is one dish that's common through the extreme diversity of Indian cuisine, it's daal (lentils). Rich and poor, festival fare or frugal meal, it's the great leveller of Indian food. In India, the word daal refers to the lentil as well as the finished dish. There are about five or six commonly used daals and countless dishes that we create out of them. More

If Indian food is just chicken tikka and biryani to you, then please keep reading. In India, food varies from region to region, home to home, and religion to religion. And it's not all spicy and complicated. Most Indian food is surprisingly simple to make and very, very rewarding to eat. In this new Indian cooking column, I'd like to introduce you to the real food we cook and eat at home. For starters, khichdi, a sort of one-pot comfort meal of rice, lentils and vegetables. More

Straightforward but with a bit of elegance—that's what Sunday suppers are all about. Lentils are easy to make, and are hearty enough to carry the meal. And sweet, simply seasoned and seared scallops add a touch of something special.
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Beets and lentils are great friends. This week I decided to branch out from my usual beet salad and try this dish of Lentils with Roasted Beets from Canal House Cooking Volume No. 6 by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton, mostly because I had all of the ingredients on hand. What I was expecting was a hearty side that incorporated the sweet earthiness of beets with meaty little lentils; what I got was so much more. More

Roasting tomatoes to concentrate their flavor is something I often do to improve tomatoes that aren't the best quality. But doing so with perfect tomatoes has an even more dramatic effect. Tucked into a sea of lentils coated in Dijon, goat cheese, olive oil, and herbs, they taste like everything you wish a sun-dried tomato would be with none of the bitterness. Sweet, salty, and tangy all at the same time. More

There as many versions of dal as there are Indian cooks. This is just one of mine, made with red split lentils and with no vegetable other than onions. The flavor is very South Indian, but the use of butter instead of oil (I actually use the spiced clarified butter niter kibbeh) and the inclusion of vadouvan at the end (to refresh the soup's flavor) take this out of strictly traditional territory. More

I love the time of year, when zucchini just starts to pop up at the farmers' market, and this recipe from Stonesoup is the perfect way to show off the vegetable. A simple lentil salad gets spruced up here with the addition of grilled ribbons of zucchini and a few slices of salty prosciutto. The lightly blackened vegetable lends a smokey essence to each bite, while the prosciutto helps make this a relatively filling main course salad. More